Pylar Abysmos

Pylar - Abysmos

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It seems to be a kind of trend at the moment – anonymous collectives. Non Serviam from France, Koldovstvo and Sleepwalker from wherever and now we got (once again) Pylar. The other trend accompanying these bands is the consistent quality of their releases. Each of their latest full-lengths received the highest praise from us here at VoS and, truth be told, Pylar will, too!

When listening to Pylar, who presumably come from Seville, the sweltering epicenter of Southern Spain’s Andalusia region where Catholicism has been installed after the end of the Reconquista in 1492 so that now the region is as religious as most of the country. And in some ways one might try to grasp that fervor in the sound of Pylar. But apart from their heritage we basically know nothing about the band and that of course is interesting as it demands us to concentrate on the music which in some way is dehumanized that way and simultaneously also has to rely more on the quality of its songwriting.

Said songwriting moves between the demarcation poles (or shall we say the cornerstones to the rituals?) which musically can be called avantgarde and occult, drone and doom metal and like any good ritual it makes no sense at first listen, because it is nothing but a cacophony of non-related sounds. Abysmos needs its time and its spins, but mainly it would need a glimpse of the ritual itself, so that the multi-fold sounds can be placed in a chronological and spatial order. The four songs – numbers one and three each crossing the 16-minute-threshold while the others are below 5 minutes each – are interconnected and are part of an even larger project, for this record is conceptualized as the second in a trilogy after 2019’s Horror Cósmyco. The idea behind the unfinished trilogy is how to evoke the meandering strength behind evolution and being – how can we access all the power that is in and around us. A classical idea but on Abysmos Pylar are willing to verbatim wander deep and that is what they do with their ambient-clad, bordering on free-jazz-studied doom metal that is never afraid to display a sense of foreboding. The titles of the songs show a certain idea of searching for our powers within ourselves or within the earth, just compare titles like ”La caída (Descenso definitivo a través de las Profundidades Mayores)” (“The Fall (Ultimate Descent through the Greater Depths)”) or ”Pasado Profundo” (“Deep Past”). Sometimes the vocals remind me of the vocals by Gavin on Dredg’s debut full-length Leitmotif because they are somewhat behind all the instruments and because it is much more a style of invocation than clear-cut vocals meant to be imitated. It feels like a very secluded, very introvert kind of singing.

The record is not supposed to be fun, but it is a perfect base for sitting down with some good earphones in the middle of the night, some beverage of your choice and the notion of having nothing to do but keep in touch with this awesome piece of music bordering on nearly every genre rock music has seen since the 60s and taking each of them onto a new level because of being interwoven and meant to ascend. Who cares about musicians’ faces, anyway?